Influencer“The War On Beauty” Demands FBI Investigate Kiki Smith Exhibit

(MENAFN- USA Art News) A Catholic art influencer, known as“The War on Beauty,” has accused a Kiki Smith exhibition at Jeffrey Deitch's Los Angeles gallery of being“art terrorism” and demanded FBI intervention. Julia James Davis, who operates under the handle“The War on Beauty,” posted a video online this week describing her visit to the gallery.

Davis, who has 188,000 followers on Instagram and 128,000 subscribers on YouTube, expressed outrage over Smith's 1992 sculpture, Tail, which depicts a woman on all fours with a 15-foot sculptural trail of excrement. In her video, she stated,“The FBI needs to go to their homes, and get inside their laptops, their hard drives, and see what is there.” Davis added,“Only people who are psychotic and probably deserve to be locked up are making stuff like this and promoting stuff like this.”

The“Art Terrorism” post garnered approximately 26,000 likes on Instagram, significantly exceeding her typical engagement of a few thousand. On YouTube, the video received over 223,000 views, well above her average, though it was not her most popular upload. Davis followed up with a second post titled“The 'Art World' Is Finished,” criticizing 1990s British art duo Jake and Dinos Chapman and referencing Marcel Duchamp's Fountain (1917) and Maurizio Cattelan's America (2016) to argue against artistic progress over the past century.

Davis also revealed efforts to contact museum boards, attempting to use her influential family background, which includes oil and Hollywood wealth, to highlight what she perceives as art's“war on beauty.” She stated that no one in the art industry engaged with her concerns, except for one Los Angeles gallery owner who, she claims, did not understand her perspective. Davis, whose family background is Jewish, also stated,“I don't think any of these people are really Jewish. I think they have another religion... It's demonic art, that's their religion.” Her follow-up video's engagement returned to her average levels on both platforms.

Before 2020, Davis studied art business at the Sotheby's Institute in London, aiming to become an art dealer. The pandemic led her to return home and triggered what she called an“identity crisis.” She converted to Catholicism and launched“The War on Beauty” web series, arguing that abandoning God has led to the world's“uglification.” Her content has shifted from earlier themes like“Important and Talented Women Artists Working Today” to more recent anti-feminist stances, including her video“Men Are Better Artists Than Women.” She claims,“Men are the superior creatives, because creation in itself is a male act” and that“God is the greatest artist, and God is male,” suggesting women's proper role in art is as a muse.

Davis recently visited the“Monuments” exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles (MOCA), concluding that the Confederate monuments featured were“actually very majestic, speaking to themes of patriotism,” while the contemporary art was“ugly.” She described Julie Dash's HOMEGOING, a video tribute to victims of a 2016 shooting, as“having to do with black and queer (I think?) identity.”

Kiki Smith's extensive body of work often incorporates mythopoetic themes, as seen in her recent intricate images of moons, birds, and constellations. A 2018 profile in T: The New York Times Style Magazine was titled,“Kiki Smith and the Pursuit of Beauty in a Notably Unbeautiful Age.” Smith herself, reflecting on Tail in Interview magazine, said,“when I see that piece now, sometimes I just feel embarrassed, like, 'Ew, why did you make that?'”

Source: Artnet News

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